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Файл:In a Glass Darkly III. Carmilla
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IN A GLASS DARKLY • III
If you confi de this young lady to our care it will be her best
consolation. The nearest village on your route is distant, and
affords no such inn as you could think of placing your daughter at; you cannot allow her to continue her journey for any
considerable distance without danger. If, as you say, you cannot suspend your journey, you must part with her tonight, and
nowhere could you do so with more honest assurances of care
and tenderness than here.”
There was something in this lady’s air and appearance so
distinguished and even imposing, and in her manner so engaging, as to impress one, quite apart from the dignity of her
equipage, with a conviction that she was a person of consequence.
By this time the carriage was replaced in its upright position, and the horses, quite tractable, in the traces again.
The lady threw on her daughter a glance which I fancied
was not quite so affectionate as one might have anticipated
from the beginning of the scene; then she beckoned slightly
to my father, and withdrew two or three steps with him out of
hearing; and talked to him with a fi xed and stern countenance,
not at all like that with which she had hitherto spoken.
I was fi lled with wonder that my father did not seem to
perceive the change, and also unspeakably curious to learn
what it could be that she was speaking, almost in his ear, with
so much earnestness and rapidity.
Two or three minutes at most I think she remained thus
employed, then she turned, and a few steps brought her to
where her daughter lay, supported by Madame Perrodon. She
kneeled beside her for a moment and whispered, as Madame
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JOSEPH SHERIDAN L E FANU
supposed, a little benediction in her ear; then hastily kissing her she stepped into her carriage, the door was closed,
the footmen in stately liveries jumped up behind, the outriders spurred on, the postilions cracked their whips, the horses
plunged and broke suddenly into a furious canter that threatened soon again to become a gallop, and the carriage whirled
away, followed at the same rapid pace by the two horsemen in
the rear.
CHAPTER III
WE COMPARE NOTES
We followed the cortege with our eyes until it was swiftly
lost to sight in the misty wood; and the very sound of the hoofs
and the wheels died away in the silent night air.
Nothing remained to assure us that the adventure had not
been an illusion of a moment but the young lady, who just at
that moment opened her eyes. I could not see, for her face was
turned from me, but she raised her head, evidently looking
about her, and I heard a very sweet voice ask complainingly,
“Where is mamma?”
Our good Madame Perrodon answered tenderly, and added
some comfortable assurances.
I then heard her ask:
“Where am I? What is this place?” and after that she said,
“I don’t see the carriage; and Matska, where is she?”
Madame answered all her questions in so far as she understood them; and gradually the young lady remembered
how the misadventure came about, and was glad to hear that
no one in, or in attendance on, the carriage was hurt; and on
learning that her mamma had left her here, till her return in
about three months, she wept.
23
JOSEPH SHERIDAN L E FANU
I was going to add my consolations to those of Madame
Perrodon when Mademoiselle De Lafontaine placed her hand
upon my arm, saying:
“Don’t approach, one at a time is as much as she can at
present converse with; a very little excitement would possibly
overpower her now.”
As soon as she is comfortably in bed, I thought, I will run
up to her room and see her.
My father in the meantime had sent a servant on horseback for the physician, who lived about two leagues away; and
a bedroom was being prepared for the young lady’s reception.
The stranger now rose, and leaning on Madame’s arm,
walked slowly over the drawbridge and into the castle gate.
In the hall, servants waited to receive her, and she was conducted forthwith to her room. The room we usually sat in as
our drawing room is long, having four windows, that looked
over the moat and drawbridge, upon the forest scene I have
just described.
It is furnished in old carved oak, with large carved cabinets,
and the chairs are cushioned with crimson Utrecht velvet. The
walls are covered with tapestry, and surrounded with great
gold frames, the fi gures being as large as life, in ancient and
very curious costume, and the subjects represented are hunting, hawking, and generally festive. It is not too stately to be
extremely comfortable; and here we had our tea, for with his
usual patriotic leanings he insisted that the national beverage should make its appearance regularly with our coffee and
chocolate.
24
IN A GLASS DARKLY • III
We sat here this night, and with candles lighted, were talking over the adventure of the evening.
Madame Perrodon and Mademoiselle De Lafontaine were
both of our party. The young stranger had hardly lain down in
her bed when she sank into a deep sleep; and those ladies had
left her in the care of a servant.
“How do you like our guest?” I asked, as soon as Madame
entered. “Tell me all about her?”
“I like her extremely,” answered Madame, “she is, I almost
think, the prettiest creature I ever saw; about your age, and so
gentle and nice.”
“She is absolutely beautiful,” threw in Mademoiselle, who
had peeped for a moment into the stranger’s room.
“And such a sweet voice!” added Madame Perrodon.
“Did you remark a woman in the carriage, after it was set
up again, who did not get out,” inquired Mademoiselle, “but
only looked from the window?”
“No, we had not seen her.”
Then she described a hideous black woman, with a sort of
colored turban on her head, and who was gazing all the time
from the carriage window, nodding and grinning derisively
towards the ladies, with gleaming eyes and large white eyeballs, and her teeth set as if in fury.
“Did you remark what an ill-looking pack of men the servants were?” asked Madame.
“Yes,” said my father, who had just come in, “ugly, hangdog looking fellows as ever I beheld in my life. I hope they
mayn’t rob the poor lady in the forest. They are clever rogues,
however; they got everything to rights in a minute.”
25
JOSEPH SHERIDAN L E FANU
“I dare say they are worn out with too long traveling,” said
Madame.
“Besides looking wicked, their faces were so strangely lean,
and dark, and sullen. I am very curious, I own; but I dare say
the young lady will tell you all about it tomorrow, if she is suffi ciently recovered.”
“I don’t think she will,” said my father, with a mysterious
smile, and a little nod of his head, as if he knew more about it
than he cared to tell us.
This made us all the more inquisitive as to what had passed
between him and the lady in the black velvet, in the brief but
earnest interview that had immediately preceded her departure.
We were scarcely alone, when I entreated him to tell me.
He did not need much pressing.
“There is no particular reason why I should not tell you.
She expressed a reluctance to trouble us with the care of her
daughter, saying she was in delicate health, and nervous, but
not subject to any kind of seizure – she volunteered that – nor
to any illusion; being, in fact, perfectly sane.”
“How very odd to say all that!” I interpolated. “It was so
unnecessary.”
“At all events it was said,” he laughed, “and as you wish to
know all that passed, which was indeed very little, I tell you. She
then said, ‘I am making a long journey of vital importance – she
emphasized the word – rapid and secret; I shall return for my
child in three months; in the meantime, she will be silent as to
who we are, whence we come, and whither we are traveling.’
That is all she said. She spoke very pure French. When she said
26
IN A GLASS DARKLY • III
the word ‘secret,’ she paused for a few seconds, looking sternly,
her eyes fi xed on mine. I fancy she makes a great point of that.
You saw how quickly she was gone. I hope I have not done
a very foolish thing, in taking charge of the young lady.”
For my part, I was delighted. I was longing to see and talk
to her; and only waiting till the doctor should give me leave.
You, who live in towns, can have no idea how great an event
the introduction of a new friend is, in such a solitude as surrounded us.
The doctor did not arrive till nearly one o’clock; but I could
no more have gone to my bed and slept, than I could have
overtaken, on foot, the carriage in which the princess in black
velvet had driven away.
When the physician came down to the drawing room, it
was to report very favorably upon his patient. She was now
sitting up, her pulse quite regular, apparently perfectly well.
She had sustained no injury, and the little shock to her nerves
had passed away quite harmlessly. There could be no harm
certainly in my seeing her, if we both wished it; and, with this
permission I sent, forthwith, to know whether she would allow me to visit her for a few minutes in her room.
The servant returned immediately to say that she desired
nothing more.
You may be sure I was not long in availing myself of this
permission.
Our visitor lay in one of the handsomest rooms in the
schloss. It was, perhaps, a little stately. There was a somber
piece of tapestry opposite the foot of the bed, representing
Cleopatra with the asps to her bosom; and other solemn clas-
27
JOSEPH SHERIDAN L E FANU
sic scenes were displayed, a little faded, upon the other walls.
But there was gold carving, and rich and varied color enough
in the other decorations of the room, to more than redeem the
gloom of the old tapestry.
There were candles at the bedside. She was sitting up; her
slender pretty fi gure enveloped in the soft silk dressing gown,
embroidered with fl owers, and lined with thick quilted silk,
which her mother had thrown over her feet as she lay upon
the ground.
What was it that, as I reached the bedside and had just
begun my little greeting, struck me dumb in a moment, and
made me recoil a step or two from before her? I will tell you.
I saw the very face which had visited me in my childhood at
night, which remained so fi xed in my memory, and on which
I had for so many years so often ruminated with horror, when
no one suspected of what I was thinking.
It was pretty, even beautiful; and when I fi rst beheld it,
wore the same melancholy expression.
But this almost instantly lighted into a strange fi xed smile
of recognition.
There was a silence of fully a minute, and then at length
she spoke; I could not.
“How wonderful!” she exclaimed. “Twelve years ago, I saw
your face in a dream, and it has haunted me ever since.”
“Wonderful indeed!” I repeated, overcoming with an effort the horror that had for a time suspended my utterances. “Twelve years ago, in vision or reality, I certainly saw you.
I could not forget your face. It has remained before my eyes
ever since.”
28
IN A GLASS DARKLY • III
Her smile had softened. Whatever I had fancied strange in
it, was gone, and it and her dimpling cheeks were now delightfully pretty and intelligent.
I felt reassured, and continued more in the vein which
hospitality indicated, to bid her welcome, and to tell her how
much pleasure her accidental arrival had given us all, and especially what a happiness it was to me.
I took her hand as I spoke. I was a little shy, as lonely people
are, but the situation made me eloquent, and even bold. She
pressed my hand, she laid hers upon it, and her eyes glowed,
as, looking hastily into mine, she smiled again, and blushed.
She answered my welcome very prettily. I sat down beside
her, still wondering; and she said:
“I must tell you my vision about you; it is so very strange
that you and I should have had, each of the other so vivid
a dream, that each should have seen, I you and you me, looking as we do now, when of course we both were mere children.
I was a child, about six years old, and I awoke from a confused
and troubled dream, and found myself in a room, unlike my
nursery, wainscoted clumsily in some dark wood, and with
cupboards and bedsteads, and chairs, and benches placed
about it. The beds were, I thought, all empty, and the room itself without anyone but myself in it; and I, after looking about
me for some time, and admiring especially an iron candlestick
with two branches, which I should certainly know again, crept
under one of the beds to reach the window; but as I got from
under the bed, I heard someone crying; and looking up, while
I was still upon my knees, I saw you – most assuredly you – as
29
JOSEPH SHERIDAN L E FANU
I see you now; a beautiful young lady, with golden hair and
large blue eyes, and lips – your lips – you as you are here.
“Your looks won me; I climbed on the bed and put my
arms about you, and I think we both fell asleep. I was aroused
by a scream; you were sitting up screaming. I was frightened,
and slipped down upon the ground, and, it seemed to me, lost
consciousness for a moment; and when I came to myself, I was
again in my nursery at home. Your face I have never forgotten
since. I could not be misled by mere resemblance. You are the
lady whom I saw then.”
It was now my turn to relate my corresponding vision,
which I did, to the undisguised wonder of my new acquaintance.
“I don’t know which should be most afraid of the other,” she said, again smiling – “If you were less pretty I think
I should be very much afraid of you, but being as you are, and
you and I both so young, I feel only that I have made your acquaintance twelve years ago, and have already a right to your
intimacy; at all events it does seem as if we were destined, from
our earliest childhood, to be friends. I wonder whether you
feel as strangely drawn towards me as I do to you; I have never
had a friend – shall I fi nd one now?” She sighed, and her fi ne
dark eyes gazed passionately on me.
Now the truth is, I felt rather unaccountably towards the
beautiful stranger. I did feel, as she said, “drawn towards her,”
but there was also something of repulsion. In this ambiguous
feeling, however, the sense of attraction immensely prevailed.
She interested and won me; she was so beautiful and so indescribably engaging.
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